Morpheus
by seboya
Summary: AU. dark!KidxConan. Kaitou Kid is an underground dream mercenary up for hire. His next mark: Edogawa Conan.
1. my heart is just so big

_AN: This fic takes place in Inception universe. Though none of Inception characters make any appearance in the fic, you might be confused if you're not familiar with the dream-sharing technology introduced in the movie._

_Prompt: Kaitou Kid is a forger, and Conan is his target._

_**Warning: dark fic, possible dubcon and/or noncon in future chapters, rating subject to change.**_

* * *

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

* * *

_[AU] KidxConan. Kaitou Kid is an underground dream mercenary up for hire. His next mark: Edogawa Conan._

_**Warning: dark fic, possible dubcon and/or noncon in future chapters.**_

* * *

**.**

**one**

**.**

* * *

The photograph is candid, zeroed in on a little boy with huge hipster glasses, fast asleep and drooling all over his desk.

"Are you serious?" Kid furrows his brows, holding up the photo to his nose. "_Him?_ You want me to steal from this little thing?"

Gin jams on his black fedora, his eyes obscured by the shadow of the brim. "We have reasons to believe that Edogawa Conan may have witnessed one of our cleanup jobs. Confirm what he saw, and report back to us."

Kid, snorting, flicks the photograph back onto the table.

"I don't know. I specialize in corporate espionage," he says, dismissive, twirling his gloved hand. "—not babysitting."

The cigarette tucked in the corner of Gin's mouth quirks down.

"Black Corp doesn't like to leave loose ends," he says. "What Edogawa saw could cost us years of research, should this go to court. If he saw anything."

Kid shrugs, stretching out kinks between his shoulder blades. "The real question is, is this going to be worth my time?"

"Let's talk figures first, then." Gin says with thinned lips. "Your late assistant. Jii Konosuke, was it? His death must have hit you rather hard. Especially on your paycheck, perhaps?"

Kid narrows his eyes, but doesn't miss the flash of a fat envelope from Gin's coat.

All right, if that's how it is.

He clears his throat, brushing imaginary dust from his white coat.

"I see you did your homework," he says, lightly. "There's a catch, though. Extracting from a child shouldn't warrant a pay that hefty."

Gin tucks the envelope back into his coat. "That depends on what Edogawa saw. Are you interested?"

Kid pretends to mull over, head tilted forward, eyes hidden by the brim of his white hat.

"I'm listening."

.

* * *

_my heart is just so big_

* * *

.

There's a stern gravity in the set of Kid's jaws when the door creaks open.

"_Bocchama_, you promised you wouldn't take any more jobs," says the low tumble of an aged voice. "Not until you found another assistant."

Kid shrugs, peeling off his suit jacket. "Relax, jiichan. It's just a solo job. Easy peasy."

The red tie is unhooked and hung over the closet door lined up with many other ties.

"Black Corp was desperate enough to use an untested poison on _Kudou Shinichi_, of all people, and let a kid witness the scene. Can you believe that?"

A laugh bubbles in his throat as he stares into a distinctly empty doorway, shrugging out of his cotton dress shirt.

"They're slipping, that Black Corp," the aged voice says after a beat of silence. "Kudou was pretty young for a detective, wasn't he?"

Kid grins, pulling his white gloves off, thumb first and pinky last. "And the_ best _subconscious security trainer. I hear stories about his mind militia all the time. Shame, too, because I always wanted to go against him someday."

Kid closes his eyes and drapes his dress shirt over a hanger. Now, what would jiichan say to this?

He'd hold up a finger, and go—

"Don't do anything reckless, _bocchama_," the aged voice spills from Kid's throat, easy and not a pitch off from the real thing he won't ever hear again.

Kid spins around to face the mirror on the closet door, eyes flickering to his own face, pale and chapped a little on the lips and alone.

"Don't worry," he says, forcing small laugh crinkles in the corners of his eyes. "I'll just waltz in, get what I need, and scam. Easy peasy."

He pulls over a nightshirt over his head, bursting into laughter.

The sound shatters into a million pieces against the walls.

.

* * *

.

Day One of spying lets Kid know: Edogawa Conan is one _peculiar_ kid.

Six, parents overseas, a charming devil with an disarming smile that adults love to adore, and rather impossible to spy on in any conventional method.

His eyes linger on the kid for exactly a second too long, and little Conan would tense up, casing his surrounding with the eyes of a sharp, trained veteran. Which speaks volumes, because what can get a kid his age all worked up like this?

A green monster under his bed probably isn't the right answer.

"Ne, what's got you so spooked, tantei-kun?" He mutters, flopping onto a couch littered with photographs and yellow sticky notes stained with coffee rings.

The screen above him flickers as Conan, pajama-clad and grainy in the footage, spits out white and pink foam into the sink, little toes bare against the toilet stool.

(Fortunately, Kid specializes in intel gathering, often with targets protected by the best security money can buy.

It's all child's play, really.)

This is what he's learned, so far: Conan likes milk in his tea, no sugar. Ambidextrous, uses HB mechanical pencils and bites on his thumb, has photos of Akagi Hideo plastered all over his locker.

Forgets where he puts his keys, sings horribly in the shower, wakes up covered sweat in the dead of night, but never has the courage to cuddle with his caretaker Mouri Ran.

It _would_ be kind of cute, if he were a normal kid.

Except here's something very, very—_off_—about Edogawa Conan.

Usually, there's a distinct voice to a person's movement, unique like a fingerprint. Problem: this kid likes to exude _two_, each so clearly defined and real and professional like a forger's work.

One second he's a charming kid, apple cheeks and clumsy fingers and all, and the next he's suddenly got this control over his body language that no child should possess, when he thinks no one is watching.

(It makes him want to kidnap him straight out of his red little bow tie and whisk him away. This kind of talent doesn't come in spades, after all.)

Just once, he's seen the exact cat-like grace, on someone easily a decade older than Conan.

Kid wonders.

.

* * *

.

Day Two is when Kid discovers the truth behind Sleeping Kogoro.

He wouldn't believe it if he didn't see it with his own eyes. A dart and a ribbon rigged to distort voices are just a little too _out there_ for anyone to even guess.

Though it makes sense, in retrospect.

He hits a button on the remote, and the screen zooms in on a grainy frame of Conan tugging at his caretaker Ran's sleeve, apparently stuck at a math problem that said: _8 x 6 =_

Just last night, the kid flipped through well-worn pages of the Fall of Reinbach in the original English text, nestled between a desk lamp and the window when everyone else was asleep.

Kid swears there's someone else hiding in there, someone brilliant and exciting under the mask of a guileless child, and the thought makes hot, hot sparks crawl up his spine.

Whatever it is, Dissociative Identity Disorder or something entirely different.

See, he respects genius when he sees it. Admires it, connects with it, and basks in its thrill, because to be honest, he's just a lonely genius trapped in an earthly body himself.

(He wonders if Conan feels that way at all, sometimes.)

Kid freezes when the screen suddenly goes pink and then black and then a large blue eye under glasses is staring straight at him, _through_ him, furrowed at the edges in a deep frown.

His breath hitches as he stares right back, licking his lips and eyes fixed on the blue eye until the screen flickers into a blank void.

He swears his heart skipped a beat, just now.

"Looks like you caught me, tantei-kun," he murmurs, flipping the channel to another camera angled from above, just in time to catch a glimpse of the little boy crushing the lens to smithereens with his shoe.

Kid hasn't ever been caught on a job before.

Either he's slipping—_not possible. _Or, or.

Like he said, he respects genius when he sees it.

(The spark _burns_.)

.

* * *

.

Kid doesn't quite remember the dream he had last night.

It was something nice though, and there's nothing wrong with having nice dreams.

Usually.

What's disconcerting is the flash of blue under wet eyelids and baby soft fingers and dark-rimmed glasses fragmented in pieces in the back of his mind.

That can't be right.

He doesn't go for anyone under eighteen, not even for one-night stands. Six isn't even a feasible number in his books, no matter how much he doubts Conan really is underneath.

That mind, though. That _mind_. It's tempting, to think about the brilliance locked away under the mask, waiting to be peeled open and unearthed.

His mind is still reeling over thoughts of flushed skin and sweat as he pours milk in his bowl of Lucky Charms.

.

* * *

.

Day Four and he's done with intel, strategies ready to go.

He can jump to the fun part now, any second he wants to.

The thing is, he _doesn't_ want to. Not just yet. Because tantei-kun's not so subtle crush on Ran-san is quite amusing to watch, really.

He has this utterly smitten _look _in his eyes when he thinks Ran-san isn't watching, a soft, tender crinkle around his eyes and a sad little smile that doesn't quite reach the corner of his mouth.

(There's a tingle somewhere in Kid's throat, a surge of sudden chill that rises up to leave a bad taste in his mouth.)

What's funnier, though, is when they walk to school together, hand-in hand.

Ran doesn't notice, but Conan spins around her like a puppy, to put her at a most protected spot every step along the way, across from a tree, beside the street sign and behind the fence.

His camera must have spooked tantei-kun quite a bit.

(The panic flickering in his eyes is quite lovely to see, too—

Because he put it there.)

Kid glances above his newspaper to rub away at an itch in his nose, eyes fixed on—the nervous clench of baby-soft fingers, the smudge on his glasses, cowlick at the back of his head—

His mind is still stuck on dark, feverish thoughts of bedside moans.

.

* * *

.

Day Five, Kid intercepts Conan on his way back from school.

"Ran-neechan, I'm stopping by the library to return a book! I'll be back in a few!" He chirps into Conan's cellphone, one thumb playing with the mini soccer ball charm looped around the edge and the other rubbing slow circles between the unconscious child's shoulder blades.

He snaps the phone shut and pulls up his van in an underground parking lot, blood running hot and in bullets under his skin.

The vial of Somnacin is cool against his fingertips as he hooks it into the PASIV device, setting the timer to five minutes.

That'd give him an hour in the dream—which is way, way more than he needs—but he's kind of hoping he can do some _exploring _en route—press his fingers against Conan's mind and peel away at his dreams and open him up raw and bare underneath that mask of a child_._

The thought makes the dark cracks of his mind _shiver._

"Let's hope you didn't see anything Gin thinks you saw, tantei-kun," he murmurs, his head spinning as he eases a needle into Conan's soft wrist. "I wouldn't want to do anything to harm your little head."

He doesn't think about how his other hand lingers just a touch too long on Conan's bones and tendons stretched under the skin of his hip.

.

* * *

_AN: So this was supposed to be a kinkmeme fill, but then plot happened. Talk about fail, fff._

_On another note, I'm in desperate need of a beta-reader. I'm not just looking for grammar fixes, though. If you're willing to bounce ideas with me, about plot and character development and story structure, please shoot me a message! _


	2. and just a bit sick

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

* * *

**.**

**two**

**.**

* * *

Kid dreams up a nondescript school smelling of decade-old desks, boards, and mossy concrete walls.

He ducks into the crowd of children milling about in the hallway, snug under the skin of a bubbly green-eyed girl, one of Conan's little herd.

Yoshida Ayumi, her name is.

(Forging isn't really necessary, but he can do whatever he wants on a solo job, so.)

There's a spark churning at the back of his neck, because—these children are all just projections, tiny little bits and pieces of Conan's brilliant mind, and he's surrounded by tens and millions of them.

Kid skips down the stairway with a light bounce in his step and a sweet, toothy smile.

.

* * *

_and just a bit sick_

* * *

.

The basement is lined up with security guards and metal safes along the wall.

Light and soundless on his feet, Kid slithers behind a pillar and offs the guards with point-blank suppressed Beretta shots, one by one.

He's more surprised that there are any guards at all. _So far, so good_, he thinks, skipping over the dark red pool growing on the floor.

"Now, let's see what secrets you're hiding, hmm?" he says, eyes flickering to the number plaques nailed on the safes, the closest one labeled 072012, the next 062012, and the next 052012.

Kid breaks into a smile. Fascinating. Tantei-kun has his secrets organized in chronological order, like he would a detective's case notes.

All the better, because this makes his job so much easier. (Curious that the labels date all the way back to thirteen something years ago, though.)

Filing that away in the back of his mind, Kid gets to work, fiddling with the dial on the safe numbered 032012.

The corner of his mouth quirks up when the safe clicks open, and he reaches for a stack of yellow envelopes tucked inside.

Grinning a manic grin, he tears one open at a corner, but what drops at his feet isn't the pile of papers he's been expecting.

It's a CD ROM.

_The hell?_

Eyes narrowed, he flips through the rest of the envelopes, feeling the slight bumps of thin round disks.

All CD ROMs and no paper, which means he can't just read off the information he wants to steal.

Kid tosses his head back with a bark of laughter. Oh, clever tantei-kun and his photographic memory. He just _knew_ things wouldn't be so easy.

Humming a tune under his breath, he picks out a CD dated 18032012, the day of Kudou Shinichi's elimination, and tucks it away in his jacket, clicking the safe closed, pulse racing in bullets because oh, the fun he's going to have.

Suddenly, a hand snares his wrist like a cuff, nails biting into tender flesh.

"What are you doing here?"

Yelping, Kid twists around, eyes flickering to the projection of Mouri Ran with an ugly look on her face.

_Eh?_

"Ran-neechan! I didn't think I'd see you here," he says, vocal cords pitched to match Ayumi's childish voice.

"Get out," the projection growls and suddenly, a fist is slammed into his face.

Or where his face would have been, had he not dodged out of the way.

Ran blinks, staring at her fist and then at him, and Kid uses the opportunity to bolt, flying up the spiral staircase and slipping into the crowd of children.

Except he can't blend in, not anymore, because hundreds of eyes are _staring_ at him, loud and piercing, like he's a foreign presence that doesn't belong.

—Which he _is_, but. He's never seen a subconscious catch on this fast.

(It makes his mind wander, back to that thought of whisking away the kid to mould him into a mini Kaitou Kid. He certainly has the potential.)

Mouth dry and fingers clammy, he skids down the hallway and up another staircase. It's unlikely, but he may need more ammo to make his trip to the computer lab on the fourth floor.

He never turns down a chance to make things go ka-boom, after all.

.

* * *

.

Correction: he would not have survived without the extra ammo.

It takes fifteen seconds for the projections to converge on him with rifles and shotguns and sixteen to realize little tantei-kun isn't just a sharp little kid—his subconscious has been _militarized_.

He skitters into a bathroom and locks the door behind him, panting, and winces when he feels dozens of little fists clawing at the door, loud and animalistic.

Gunshots pierce holes through the door, zipping right past the bone of his cheek and grazing the skin.

Pain blooms in his cheeks, and his hand flies to touch the wound. "God damn, tantei-kun," he spits, seeing blood on his fingers.

Red splatters in his vision as he loses control, flickering back to his own skin for a brief moment, adult and decked in white.

Teeth gritted, he sets a detonator charge against the door and dons the disguise again, kicking his shoes off and using his small size to crawl into the ventilation duct.

He doesn't hear the explosion or the screams behind him.

.

* * *

.

His hair is matted in grime, grease, and blood when he crashes against the linoleum floor. Dust shifts under his knees as he fumbles upright, breath caught in his throat.

The computer lab, painted in dull beige along the walls, is quiet and empty, but it's hard to tell how long it'd stay that way.

Sparing a brief glance around the room for any lurking projections, Kid picks out the nearest computer, inserts the CD ROM and hits play.

The screen sputters to life, and there's Kudou Shinichi in hyper sharp detail, windswept hair and terror laced in his eyes as he runs for his life, black-clad figures hot on his tail.

Kid bites his lips, fingers drumming against the armrest on the swivel chair. "Damn, damn."

An oppressive silence swallows him whole, because Edogawa _did_ see what Gin thinks he saw, which means—

Though it's possible that he didn't see everything, isn't it?

Licking his lips, he grabs the mouse again, about to fast-forward the footage and skip to the important part, when a gun clicks behind his ear.

"Hands off, thief."

His breath hitches. That voice. He knows that voice. _Tantei-kun_. Kid hits pause and spins around, slowly.

There he is, Edogawa Conan in his hipster glasses and child-sized formal wear. His skin is sheened in nervous red and white and did he mention there's a shotgun half his height mounted on his shoulder?

"Ah, tantei-kun. I've been looking forward to meeting you."

Kid, leaning into his chair away from the computer screen, raises his arms in the air meaning _I mean no harm_.

Conan frowns, tiny finger hovering above the trigger in an unspoken threat, but Kid can't help the Cheshire grin spreading on his face.

Tantei-kun is so _cute_. (Though it is impressive that he saw right through his forgery.)

"Who the hell are you?" Conan demands. The tip of the gun digs into Kid's shoulders, and a laugh threatens to bubble up his throat.

What he wants to know is _where does a child like you get to learn something like trigger discipline?_

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you I was Mr. Charles, your security man around here?" he tries, licking his lips.

Conan doesn't even blink, and lowers his gun to aim at his knees. "You're hilarious."

A bolt of dread shoots through his blood. Okay, not that cute anymore. A shot to the knees is the last thing he wants. He has to think fast.

"Glad you think so," he says, slowly, "but you see, I'm talking about a _special_ kind of security, if you know what I mean."

He waggles a brow, twirling his hand.

Conan jams the barrel of the gun harder into the tendons in his knee. "Cut the crap and show yourself. Your forgery isn't fooling anyone."

Kid stiffens, but doesn't flinch a muscle.

"Ah, very sharp. But I _like_ this forgery, you see." he says, voice light and jeery, because this conversation is going down a predictable route and he kind of hates predictable.

"The question is, can you really shoot me when I'm like this?"

He points at himself, at the strawberry hair band, and at the little pink dress dotted in white.

Kid fully expects Conan to freeze up for a split second, and that's all opening he needs to jump and knock the shotgun out of Conan's fingers, flickering back to his real form dressed in white and blue accented with a red tie.

He slams Conan nose-first into the floor, wrists pinned on his back, and points the tip of his Beretta between his shoulders.

"Kaitou Kid." Kid starts when Conan breathes against the cold linoleum. "Black Corp sent you, didn't they?"

Kid grins, a thread of that _spark _rising up his neck again.

"Smart kid," he says, right behind Conan's ear, lips ghosting along the thin stretch of white skin and bones. "Can you guess what I'm here to steal?"

There's a beat of silence.

"You want to know what happened to Kudou Shinichi," Conan says, finally.

Kid cocks his head, because that—wasn't what he thought he'd hear. "Well, ATPX 4869, obviously," he drolls, before a jolt of something hits him. "Unless, of course, you know otherwise?"

Conan bites his lips, shaking his head.

Jackpot. Interesting.

"Doesn't matter. I'll figure it out in due time," Kid says with a dismissive wave. "But I must say, aren't you a little too young to be playing with guns, tantei-kun?"

He runs his fingers through Conan's short tufts of hair with a fond crinkle around his eyes.

(If looks could kill, Kid would drop dead on the spot.)

"See, I don't think you understand what it means to point something like this—" he nudges the shotgun with the nose of his pale shoe. "—to someone like me, tantei-kun."

There's a click, as he unpins the safety of his Beretta dragging against Conan's T-shirt.

"So I'll teach you. Nothing like a hands-on experience, yeah?"

The faint pulse beats faster under the skin of Conan's wrist as he runs the tip of the gun along the bumps on Conan's spine, settling on a firm joint in his right shoulder.

Conan gasps and bucks in his grasp, thighs dragging against Kid's.

Kid smiles, a thrill spilling into his throat, and—fires.

.

* * *

.


	3. i'm just a little monster

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

* * *

**.**

**three**

**.**

* * *

Conan screams, thrashing against the floor, twisting his arms and kicking at empty air.

Kid watches red gurgle out of the exit wound and lets up, switching his arm to gain a firm chokehold around Conan's neck.

It's a clean shot, which means he won't be bleeding out anytime soon. Plenty of time to get what he came for.

Kid drags him back to the computer, a trail of red spilling behind him, and latches onto the mouse, fast forwarding the footage to a frame where Kudou trips over his feet and falls with a grunt.

Conan sucks in a breath, eyes wide in terror, and suddenly, there's a loud _wham_ that rattles the entire building, like it's been hit by an earthquake.

_Oh, what is it now?_

Kid peers out the window, only to see a giant fucking _tank_ bulldozing its way through the first floor below, and a swarm of armed helicopters converging on the roof.

Lips pursed, he backs away from the glass pane. Tantei-kun's mind is a nightmare at its finest, he'll give him that.

No more playing around.

Heart pounding in ribcage, he spins on his toes and winds the footage forward again, just enough to catch a glimpse of Kudou being hauled to his feet by the scruff of his neck, surrounded by Black Corp agents.

Kid hits play and watches with baited breath, fingers creeping up Conan's neck onto his face, because _this is it_—if Conan saw any further than this, he's going to have to do unpleasant _things_—and then a row of deciduous teeth sink into the bridge of flesh between his index and thumb.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Kid yelps and lets go of Conan.

Conan dives straight for the extension cord stretched along the linoleum floor, yanking at the computer plug lodged there.

"Oh, no, you don't."

Kid grabs a fistful of hair and slams him into the wall. Conan collapses against the floor with a gasp, hand flying to the growing stain on his shirt.

Kid kneels over him, tucking his Beretta back in its ankle holster because Conan is six and injured and there's a word for this: overkill.

The footage in the corner continues to play, as a stream of water and a pill is forced down Kudou's throat, and Kid feels his knuckles turn red and white.

_This is it_.

Tantei-kun saw _everything_ and now he has to _do_ things to his mind, things ordered by Black Corp and things that Kid doesn't really want to do.

What a shame.

Suddenly, a red palm flies into the corner of his vision and the next second, he's seeing, cheek against the biting cold floor.

He lashes out with his arm before Conan can get to the power cord again, though.

"Too late, tantei-kun," he says, lifting him by the scruff of his neck. "I already got what I'm looking for."

Conan bites his lip, eyes darting to the computer screen in the corner. What he doesn't expect is Conan throwing his entire weight on him, clawing at his face.

Or his eyes, to be specific.

Tantei-kun is getting _desperate, _more so every second, like there's something he doesn't want Kid to see.

Well. Now he's curious.

Gritting his teeth, Kid grapples against the clawing fingers, and really, it's not that hard to peel off a six-year-old and pin him to the ground.

"Don't test me, tantei-kun. It's over."

He digs his nails into the growing red stain on his shoulder, and feels a wave of satisfaction when Conan gasps, trying _so hard_ not to scream.

His head spins with dark thoughts of red skin and blood between thighs and wet eyelids and no, now is not the time.

"Then get out of my head!" Conan says between groans of pain.

"Not yet." Kid shrugs, twisting around to face the computer screen again. "What's in here you don't want me to see?"

"Dont—!"

He winds the video forward again and catches a glimpse of something very—_strange_.

There is translucent smoke seeping tfrom Kudou's sleeves and his dress shirt shrivels up on itself, slowly, like a balloon deflating.

It takes a few seconds to realize Kudou's body is literally _shrinking_.

Shrinking and shrinking until there's nothing but Edogawa Conan swimming in the pool of Kudou's jacket, eyes fluttered shut and breathing uneven.

Oh. _Oh._

Understanding slams into his mind, and suddenly, _it all makes sense_. The security, Black Corp's sloppy cleanup, _everything._

He'd been battling the infamous Kudou Shinichi, and he _won_.

(And there's a little voice whispering against the scratched walls of his mind—_he's not really six anymore now is he—you were never the one to judge anyone by what they look like_—and the best and the worst—_he can take whatever you want to do to him._

Kid ignores it. For now.)

"Knew there was someone hiding in you, tantei-kun," he breathes, blood pulsing red and dark in his veins. "Just never thought it'd be _you_."

Conan—flutters his eyes shut, lips white and fingers splattered in gushing red from his shoulder.

A bead of resignation rolls down his cheek and, and it sends shivers down Kid's spine.

"That's funny, though. How come you're all bite-sized in the dream? Do you _forge_, tantei-kun?" Kid twists around, lowering his nose to Conan's eye level.

"N-none of your business," Conan spits.

"What happens," Kid snakes his fingers along the bare skin on Conan's knee, just inches below the hem of his shorts, "—if I were to shoot you, right here? Will the pain distract you enough to drop the mask?"

Conan goes dead still under his arms, and Kid flashes a grin.

"Only one way to find out, no?"

And he'll be seriously impressed if the forgery lasts through a bullet in the knee.

.

* * *

.

It doesn't.

With a whisp of smoke, Conan shimmers out of view, to be replaced with the barely-conscious form of a very much adult Kudou Shinichi.

Seeing it twice doesn't make it any less breathtaking.

Kid neatly steps over the growing red puddle and crouches down by Kudou's head.

"Interesting," he says, thumb hovering over Kudou's lips. "A bullet in the shoulder isn't enough, but one in the knee is?"

Kudou glares at him, teeth gritted. "Don't touch me."

Kid bursts into laughter. "Pleased to meet you, all the same. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we're running out of time."

He shoots Kudou a wink, the cool barrel of a Beretta pressed into the side of his own skull.

"I'll see you on the other side. Ta."

Kid fires.

.

* * *

.

An idea is the most resilient parasite, extractors say.

Once it takes hold, it doesn't let go, infecting the mind in a matter of seconds.

Kid has an idea.

The spark was tantei-kun and his oddities, the fuel was his subconscious fighting tooth and nail to keep him out, and now Kudou Shinichi and his flawless forgery have ignited it into full flames.

Kid likes his idea _a lot_.

Conan probably won't, but that's the beauty of it.

.

* * *

_i'm just a little monster_

* * *

.

The kid wakes up gasping and shivering in the backseat of the van.

"Easy, tantei-kun," Kid says, running a hand through his soft tuft of hair. A gun is pressed to his neck, applying subtle pressure to the airway.

"I just want to talk. Are you ready to listen?"

Conan closes his eyes with a shudder.

Kid smiles, and holds up a small vial holding a foggy, swirling liquid. "See this? My employers gave it to me, to use on you, in case you saw something they didn't want you to see. It's a variation of Somnacin, I think. Do you know what it does?"

Conan purses his lips, shaking his head.

"It's like a worm, you see. It likes to eat away at every shred of memory it touches in your system until there's nothing left but a vegetative void."

Kid fights down a manic lilt at the corner of his mouth when Conan's eyes widen in understanding—he's a smart boy, of course he understands where this is going.

"What would be a real shame is," Kid says, twirling the vial by the stretch of a black string attached to its top, "if it wiped out what's left of Kudou Shinichi in your little head. Your memories, your intelligence, every last bit. What would that make you, then, hmm?"

Conan exhales quickly. "You—you wouldn't," he rasps, voice cracking in two. "What's in it for you? You're not Black Corp's lapdog."

Kid shrugs.

"Oh, no, no, nothing personal, of course," he says, dragging the tip of his gun up along Conan's neck to his chin and his lips and his nose and the bridge between his wide blue eyes. "It's just a job for me."

Conan's breathing is short and shallow against Kid's palm nuzzled above the corner of his mouth.

"But I do recognize talent when I see it. And boy, do I need a talent like that with me," Kid murmurs, dropping the gun to his side and wrapping his gloved fingers around Conan's throat. "What do you say, tantei-kun?"

Conan gapes at him like fish out of water. "_What?_"

"See, there are only so many solo jobs out there in the dream sharing business, and I think you'd make a perfectly usable assistant."

Conan glares at him. "No."

"No? Are you sure?" Kid cocks his head, shifting his weight to press his legs harder against Conan's. "Remember, you get to keep your brilliant mind if you come with me."

"And if I don't—"

"You get re-formatted, like a hard drive. Poof, all those memories, gone in a flash. Except, of course, your mind would be a little less than sane after such an invasive procedure."

Conan bites his lip.

"No."

Kid breaks into a smile. "I don't think you mean that, tantei-kun. You're being selfish—which is understandable, given the circumstances. But what about poor Ran-san?"

Conan stiffens under him.

"Wouldn't you like to see your dear Ran-san as Shinichi, someday?" Kid says, gently prying off Conan's glasses and running his knuckles against his cheeks.

He likes the shade of red the skin turns under his fingers.

"You don't want to leave her hanging like that forever. She'll weep for you for days and weeks and months and years, never knowing if you're dead or alive."

Conan closes his eyes with a shudder, and Kid unhooks the bow tie clasped at the back of his neck.

"Imagine what'll happen when dear Conan-kun loses his mind, too. You've already hurt her so much."

"Shut up," Conan mouths, soundless, and Kid has to strain his ears to make out the words.

"Wouldn't it be a shame," Kid presses, undoing the knot of his own red tie, "if your parents came back home to a retarded son? It's going to kill them, to see you like that."

Conan's breath hitches.

"They'll look at you, but they'll always be looking for the other you in vain, for years and years and maybe they won't ever stop searching for you, even after they turn grey in their age."

There's a rustle of fabric as he loops the tie around Conan's neck with gentle fingers.

"Stop," Conan whispers. "Okay, okay, I get it. Just. Stop."

"Hmm?" Kid thumbs the corner of Conan's mouth turned down.

"I said—okay. Okay. Just—just shut up."

"Excellent."

The tie is locked into a clean knot around Conan's neck.

.

* * *

.


	4. i just think i love you

_AN: Please note the change of rating. WARNING: Implied non-con._

* * *

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

* * *

**.**

**four**

**.**

* * *

_Ran-neechan and ojisan,_

_Kaa-san came to pick me up the other day and guess what? I'm going home! Ojisan, that means you can have my pudding in the fridge, on the second shelf, if you want. Ran-neechan, I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye, but I'll send you mails, I promise! Say sorry to the kids for me. I'll miss you guys a lot. Maybe I'll get to come visit someday._

_Conan_

"Good," Kid says, stroking his chin. "Cheery and to the point. Next?"

Conan goes still in his lap, and Kid has to pry the crumpled note from his fingers.

_Kaa-san and Tou-san,_

_If you're seeing this letter, it means I've gone missing for about a month or so. Don't worry, I haven't been kidnapped or anything. It's just_—_I don't think I can keep pretending to be Conan anymore, not in front of the Mouri's. Or to anyone. It's been_—_really hard, hiding myself all the time, and I think I just need some time away from everything that's been happening lately. I'll make sure to call you guys every week or so, but please, don't try to find me. Right now, I don't want to be found, and I'll be back before you know it._

_Shinichi_

Kid bursts into laughter, folding the note in half. "Making promises you can't keep, tantei-kun?"

"Shut up," Conan grits his teeth.

(Kid wants to run his tongue along the white of Conan's teeth and along the walls of his mouth and maybe press the cool muzzle of a gun there, too.)

"Why, I'm more surprised that you haven't tried coding the message," Kid says, lowering the curve of his mouth to the back of Conan's neck. "You _do_ want to get away from the prison your life has become, no?"

He wants to take the silence and study it and interpret it as a _yes_, _I want you too, _but instead, he smiles.

"All right, the content is good, the paper is not," he says, cramming the paper in Conan's jean pocket and getting up on his feet. "Go write up another one, this time perhaps without dribbling it with your tears, and we're good to go."

Conan shudders a sigh.

"Fuck you."

Kid peals into laughter, and ruffles his hair. "Language, tantei-kun. Children your age should be seen, not heard."

Ooh, if looks could kill.

"How about this?" Kid asks the cowlick at the back of Conan's head. "Every time you cuss, you go a week without calling home. Deal?"

Conan slams the door behind him.

.

* * *

.

"The kid's clear," Kid slaps his hand against the table, getting up. "He just got separated from his friends in Tropical Land. Didn't even know there was a chase going on right across the street."

"Hm."

A fat envelope is dropped onto the table. Kid picks it up with a grin. "I was just in time, too. The kid upped and left with his parents overseas, right after, so."

Kid pockets the envelope and twirls his hand, about to leave, when Gin speaks up.

"We could use your skill again, in the near future. If you're interested."

Kid shakes his head.

"Sorry, no will do. Not taking any jobs at the moment. I have," he pauses with a manic glint in his eyes, "some personal business to attend to, you see."

His insides _quiver_ at the thought.

.

* * *

.

Day One, Week One of training and all Kid can think about is how much he'd like to touch Conan's neck.

He doesn't know what's stopping him, really.

"As my assistant, you only need two things: loyalty and skill. Fortunately, you've got both in spades, or at least I ensured that you do, so we'll skip the theories and go straight to practice."

Conan growls under his breath, and Kid flashes him a smile, setting up the PASIV device on a mahogany table in his basement.

"Now, we're going to play a little game, just to see where you're at. Are you ready?"

Kid unwinds the cord and presses the sharp tip of the needle to Conan's inner wrist.

"Wait," Conan breathes, pulling his wrist away. "You can't just waltz into someone else's dream like this."

"Oh, don't worry. We're going into _my_ dream, not yours, tantei-kun."

Conan doesn't look all that much relieved. Clever thing.

"I'm going to forge myself as someone else," Kid says with a wink, tugging the wrist back, and breaks skin with the needle with before Conan can protest further. "Your job is to find me, if you can survive long enough."

Conan's limp body hits the cushion.

.

* * *

.

Tantei-kun finds him in an hour, fighting tooth and nail against the projection strangling him from behind to nail him with a soccer ball, just as the timer runs out and they wake up with bleary eyes.

He looks quite lovely when he's being strangled, eyes wide and lips white and skin red.

"Points for creativity and improvement," Kid says, closing the lid on the PASIV device. "Especially for being able to do that to someone wearing Ran-san's face."

"Shut up," Conan growls.

Kid wants to sink his nails into Conan's pale throat and kiss the foul words right out of his mouth.

He also wants to touch him right where his belly meets his thighs.

(Something tells him tantei-kun saw right through his forgery the moment his eyes landed on him, brief and in passing, five minutes into the dream.

Just like last time.)

The thought sends a rush of adrenaline along his spine. The Kudous certainly trained their heir very well, indeed.

.

* * *

.

Sometimes, there are thoughts of Jii-chan spilling through the dark cracks in his mind.

Kid doesn't like to think about it, much, but.

Jii-chan would have loved tantei-kun like a grandson, if he'd ever met him.

.

* * *

.

Week Two and Kid still hasn't had tantei-kun yet and it's driving him crazy.

He wants to, but he_ can't_ and he doesn't understand why not.

"Now, in order to forge properly," Kid says, flat and loud, "you need to ground yourself first, with your original self as projected in a dream. Change back to Shinichi, and we'll go from there."

They're wandering in a dream populated by mall-goers, and Kid snatches a chocolate ice cream cone from a stand with a flick of his wrist.

Conan doesn't move.

"Of course, there's absolutely no need to be shy, tantei-kun," Kid drawls with a long lick of the cone.

"I—can't." Conan looks away, shifting on his toes.

"What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't change back. My mind won't let me. I'm stuck as Conan, even in dreams."

Well.

"That's inconvenient," Kid thins his lips, "but not impossible to work around."

There's a brief shimmer in the air before a pistol replaces the ice cream cone in his gloved hands.

Conan freezes, turning ashen white.

"Now, a shot in the kneecap would be too debilitating, but a graze wouldn't be enough," Kid says, flexing his shoulder muscles. "How about a flesh wound in your arm?"

(_How about sliding the pistol between his lips and listening to his voice turn sandpaper hoarse under pressure?_)

Before Conan can turn around and bolt, Kid grabs him by the scruff of his neck and spreads him out on the linoleum floor, clicking off the safety pin. "Now I need you to stay still, yeah?"

"Don't!" Conan pulls and pushes at the boot pressed to his stomach but Kid snatches hold of his right wrist, using his elbow to pin it into place.

"Remember, tantei-kun, the pain is just in the mind." He whispers, teeth against Conan's earlobe and fingers stretched above Conan's veins.

The cool barrel of the gun is dragged down his chin along his collarbone and down along the milk skin of his arm.

(Kid wants to steal the frantic breath right out of his lips.)

The gunshot has a flock of crows hawking, drawing a low arc across the sky.

.

* * *

_i just think i love you_

* * *

.

"You bastard," Shinichi spits as Kid stitches up the wound with practised fingers.

"Stop whining, tantei-kun. It's unbecoming."

Though the way his tongue rolls around the sound of '_bastard_' is kind of. Well.

It send hot, hot thrill rushing in his veins.

He's long past denying them, these urges, because it's natural to be attracted to someone this—exciting, someone who can match him head to toe—except that'd be Shinichi, not Conan, but he kind of likes towering over his little head, too.

It's not about his six-year-old looks.

What he's attracted to is the _power_.

.

* * *

.

"You get three minutes. After that, the line will disconnect, automatically," Kid says, dropping a phone into Conan's lap.

If it were up to Kid, he'd have rather faked Shinichi and Conan's death altogether, but there's a reason he's letting Conan have hope.

Hope that he'll someday get to go back. (Not that he ever will.)

Kid adjusts the earbuds and turns up the volume when a voice cracks into life.

"_Hello?"_

"Hey, Ran," Conan's voice is fluted and breathy against the bow tie. "How've you been?"

"_Shinichi! You ass, you haven't called in ages!"_

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's just—I haven't been well as of late."

There's a short pause. _"Are you okay? What happened?"_

"No, no, it's just this one case. I'll solve it, though. I always do. I'll come back once I'm done."

There's a soft crinkle in the corner of Conan's eyes that Kid doesn't like much.

"_Listen, Shinichi. I'm kind of in the middle of a tutoring session with Sonoko right now. Can I call you back in an hour?"_

"Oh," Conan's face falls. "Well, I don't think I—"

"_I know, I know, you're busy. But I have final exams next week and I'm not ready at all and it's really, really stressing me out."_

"Don't be. I know you're gonna ace it. You worry too much, you know?"

"_Thanks, Shinichi_—_WHY HELLO THERE, INSENSITIVE BOYFRIEND. Can't you see how much your soul mate needs you right now? DO THE RIGHT THING AND GET YOUR ASS HERE RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN."_

"_Sonoko!"_

There's a rustling static as the girls wrestle for the phone, and Conan's laughter is getting a little too watery for Kid's tastes.

If Conan spills anything, anything at all—just so much as a _hint _of anything different than usual—

"_Sorry, pretend you hadn't heard that. Anyway, I gotta go. Call me back in an hour and we'll talk more, okay?"_

"Okay. I love you."

The line disconnects.

Conan's breathing is short and shallow against the phone, and Kid pops the earbuds free, a bitter chill spilling into his tongue.

.

* * *

.

Kid dreams of touching tantei-kun, not for the first time.

It _is_ the first time he wakes up hot and sticky in his sheets, though.

He crawls off the bed with a grunt, head spinning with flashes of smooth skin and lithe muscles under his fingertips and blue eyes glazed over in pain, and clicks the lampshade on.

And stares.

His bedside drawers are left ajar, half their contents spilt on the floor, like socks and ties and wireless radios, and his PASIV device is laid open on the desk.

Conan sits frozen in front of it, deer caught in the headlights, fingers curled around about half a dozen clear Somnacin vials.

"Looking for this?" Kid growls, pulling the foggy vial from out of nowhere, and it's kind of amazing that he sounds coherent at all when he's—this _hard_.

Damn it.

Conan bites his lips, and Kid is caught staring at the way his lips are pulled and stretched under teeth and _fuck it_, no.

There's a flick of his wrist, and suddenly, the room is filled with an acrid smell of sleeping gas.

Kid picks him up, trying not to think about Conan's thighs and Conan's lips and the curve of Conan's spine, and locks him up in the basement broom closet, because he really doesn't need to see him again for the rest of the night.

(He knows what this is.

—an _obsession._)

.

* * *

.

Kid realizes he's been far too lenient.

"Let me teach you something about breaking rules, tantei-kun," Kid says, thumbing the lid clasped on the foggy vial. "The point is to not get caught, you know? That's how I make my living. It's a delicate art that you, unfortunately, haven't mastered yet."

Conan bites his lip.

"But you're not really going to drug me with that," he says, voice cracking in pieces. "You want me useful, not retarded."

"So you were going to steal it and use it on me instead, huh?"

It's pretty clever—cleverer than just trying to run away because Conan knows he has nowhere to go that Kid can't follow.

(He'd seen this coming from a mile away, to be honest—he just wanted to see how long it'd be until tantei-kun would dare.)

Lips pursed, Kid pops open the vial and tilts it downward, sending a thin stream of liquid onto his palm.

With a snap of fingers, it ignites into flames and disintegrates into nothing.

"Let's see. Ran-san is having her final exams in a week, am I right? She sounded pretty stressed."

Conan's breath quickens, and Kid wants nip away at that layer of panic and peel it off and tear it into pieces.

"Perhaps I can spare her the trouble? After all, what are a few exams when there are armed Black Corp agents after her?"

"Wait, _no_, you _can't_—"

"Why not?" Kid cuts him off. "She could have been consorting with Kudou Shinichi. Or _maybe_ she's been hiding him all along."

Kid's insides quiver at the ripe black fear pooling in Conan's eyes.

"I trust this won't happen again?"

Conan closes his eyes and nods, and Kid wants to press his tongue against his eyelids and lap away at the sad little horror stricken in his face.

.

* * *

.

More often than not, Kid wonders why he bothers resisting.

He's ruined tantei-kun already. What's a little _more_ blackmail going to do to change that?

Nothing, really. But.

He runs a nervous finger against the tiny scratch on the PASIV device, licking his lips.

It's just a little indulgence, he tells himself.

.

* * *

.

(His projection of Conan is waiting for him in the bed, cuffed at his wrists and a tie looped around his eyes.

His red tie. Fuck.

He knows himself too well.

Kid snakes onto the bed with a light tumble, and the projection panics, tugging against his binds, as if he already knows what's coming.

"Tantei-kun," Kid makes a strangled sound.

"Get away," Conan hisses, lashing out with his socked foot, which Kid catches in his grip with ease.

The sock is peeled off with a delicate tug.

"I want you, tantei-kun," he breathes against Conan's forehead, fingers ghosting along the ankle bone and inside the curve of his knee and _up_.

Conan shudders, breath short and gasping.

His thumb pushes up against the faded edge of Conan's pant leg, crawling underneath.

"Get _off_!" Conan starts and almost socks Kid right in his jaw with his other foot.

There's a hideous tremor in his voice that Kid doesn't like.

Or. Actually.

"Fuck," he grunts, fumbling with his own belt as his fingers close around the grip of a loaded Browning, dragging the barrel along Conan's jaw and against the corner of his mouth.

Conan freezes.

"I want you to," Kid breathes, "—_suck_."

Conan's breath quickens, and Kid bites his lip, his hand closing around his own length.

He can feel tantei-kun's sharp exhale against his thumb and the silence _drags_, and Kid wonders for a second if Conan will try kicking him again.

Then, Conan's tongue darts out and slides along the tip, hesitant and weak, and Kid swears, pulling Conan close, feverish and hot and it feels so good and he can't stop, not now and not _ever_—

The fever swallows him whole.)

.

* * *

_AN: Ahhh, I'm so sorry for the delay! Chapter 5 was being a headache and I was hoping to sort out the mess before posting chapter 4, but I gave up, fff. As an apology, I'd like to offer a short sneak peek for the next chapter! The chapter titles for Morpheus all come from one song: if you leave a review with the correct title and the artist, I'll send you a sneak peak! :)_


	5. you make me laugh and cry

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

* * *

**.**

**five**

**.**

* * *

Kid wonders.

See, this isn't like him at all, to settle for a mere fantasy when the real thing is just within reach. Especially after all the trouble he's gone through.

He spits out pink foam and stares as it swirls down the drain.

His mind is still reeling over flashes of blood between thighs and slick lips around the barrel of his gun and—_damn _if he doesn't want that.

That he's resisted this long speaks _volumes_, of something he's buried deep in his mind, something so drowned in the dark cracks of his subconscious that he can no longer hear it.

(That is a lie—

because sometimes, he barely catches himself wanting to hold Conan's hand and just _ask, _nice and short, if he's on his mind as much as tantei-kun is on his mind.

_I like you. Do you like me back?_

Yeah. Not an option.)

Kid growls, splashing cold water in his face.

.

* * *

_you make me laugh and cry_

* * *

.

It's tough, pretending you don't want someone.

But this,_ this_ is harder—pretending you don't care what they think of you, when you actually _do_.

If only he'd realized that a little sooner.

"Are you ready?" Kid breathes, digging the muzzle of the gun into skin stretched over muscles and tendons.

Conan grimaces.

"Shut up and get it over with."

Kid purses his lips.

He doesn't like the sound of that, because it makes him sound like a sadistic sicko who gets off on causing others pain.

Which he _is, _but that's not why he has a gun pointed at Conan's arm.

"Tantei-kun," Kid snaps. "I would _love_ to pass on the secrets of forgery to you, the nice and efficient way, you know? All you have to do is change back to Shinichi."

He wants Conan to see how much he's _resisting_, how much of this isn't just for sick pleasure.

(Because if it were, if things went the way Kid really, really wanted—Conan would be on his knees, eyes wet and lips red, naked to his toes and bound at his wrists as Kid pounds into him, hard and fast, over and over again.)

"Well, I can't!" Conan shoots back, flinching away from the barrel of the gun. "What the hell do you want from me?"

Kid licks his lips.

"Change of attitude, for one," he says, flat and low. "I'm doing this because I have to. Your forgery, no matter how perfect, will shatter to bits within seconds unless you start with your original self. That's how it works."

Conan spears him with a glare. "And I guess I'm supposed to enjoy being shot?"

Kid opens his mouth to argue, and snaps it shut.

"Fine. We'll think of something else," he says. "What are your thoughts on drowning?"

Conan spits in his face.

(And Kid has to use every ounce of patience he was born with _not_ to strangle him right then and there.)

.

* * *

.

There's a list that germinates like a weed in Kid's head: a shove off a bridge, three minutes of head forced underwater, a blunt force to the skull, a taser to the back of the neck in Drive Stun mode, if powered enough.

They all work like a charm, without causing as much damage as a bullet.

And then there's this _look_ in Conan's eyes when he's about to black out and fade away, that Kid can't erase from the back of his mind.

He does a decent job of shoving it away during the day, but at _night_, in his bed, when darkness edges closer—.

That's another story altogether.

.

* * *

.

Here's the thing: tantei-kun has a way of spilling into every corner of Kid's being and it's driving him _nuts_—his fantasies and thoughts and dreams and grocery lists and lately, even his _clothes_.

Kid stares at the black stain on the dress shirts piled in the laundry basket.

_White_ dress shirts, mind you.

_"_My shirts!" he sputters, holding one up to his nose with a horrified look. "You ruined them!"

Conan, shrugging, picks out a pair of size one yellow socks out of the heap.

"I'm not the one who forgot to separate blacks and whites," he says, getting to his feet with a full laundry bag.

(Kid doesn't miss the way Conan's shirt rides up his stomach, showing a flash of smooth skin and a belly button.)

"But it was _your_ jeans! Your black jeans!"

"And _you_ bought them," Conan quips, hand on the knob, "If you'd let me out to shop for my own clothes every once in a while, I'd have gotten better ones that don't bleed all over like ink."

Kid makes a growling noise. "Oh, you just think you're so clever, don't you?"

Conan shrugs and slams the door behind him.

_Why that little-!_

Kid, gritting his teeth, inhales, deep and low like a lovesick child.

He's so _sick_ of wanting.

.

* * *

.

There's a little crack that runs thin and ragged across the mirror in the bathroom.

"Something's troubling you, Bocchama," Konosuke's voice tumbles from his mouth.

Kid thumbs the crack with a blank look, bottom lip between his teeth. "I don't want to talk about it."

To that, Jii-chan would probably say something like—

"All right, I'll leave you to it, then," the aged voice concedes.

Wait, that's not right. _I'll leave you to it_ is quite the last thing he wants to hear, and the least helpful.

"Ah, wait, I don't really mean that, Jii-can," Kid says, bumping his skull against the cracked mirror. "I do want to talk—see, there's a little bit of problem I have, and."

He closes his mouth, because how does one go about saying what he wants to say?

"You're talking about Conan-kun," the aged voice says, and the name almost gets caught in his throat.

(Kid could just say—_yes, I want to tower over his pretty little head and press a shiny knife to his collarbone and see how far I can push before he screams._

But there's a part of him, lonely and grieving and desperate, that screams, _no, no, no, you don't._

It's lost the only person in the whole world who bothered to understand the dozens of different ways he'd been broken, and it sees someone kind of like that in tantei-kun, except much, much closer and more special.

This want is just as loud as the other want, and he can't hear himself over their screams.)

"Yeah," Kid says before he can catch himself. "I mean, no, not really, but kind of."

He does a half-hearted attempt at Jii-chan's raised brows before slapping a hand over his face, slamming his fist into the mirror with a thud.

This isn't going to work.

(And.

He doesn't even want to _think_ about the way Jii-chan would look at him if he ever knew the kinds of dream he has every night.)

.

* * *

.

You know you have a problem with obsession when you start putting aside everything else in your life.

Like work, for example.

His _other_ work, the one not involving guns or fancy white suits.

"I'm so sorry, sir, I was down with the worst flu last week and couldn't get up, much less work," Kid mumbles an apology, though he's worried less about being fired and more about tantei-kun left to his own devices in his basement.

Granted, he's been gassed to sleep, enough to last for hours, but still.

"It's all right. I got your voice message," the manager says, lighting up a cigarette. "Though there was this lady who was really worried about you. Aoko, I think? She said you wouldn't answer your phone."

"Oh," Kid says with a quick bow, "thank you, sir." He's about to twist around—when it hits him that this is his chance.

"Ito-san, I know this is a bit sudden," he starts, his face carefully masked, "but I haven't been feeling well lately and I think it's about time I took a short break."

It's not a lie, not exactly. He's been feeling pretty—_sick_, as of late. Sick and obsessed and hungry and wanting in ways that can't be healthy.

(What he needs is to stay the _hell_ away from tantei-kun.)

The cigarette falls from Ito's mouth. "You're quitting?!"

"Only for a bit," Kid smiles. "I just need some time to get things together. If you'll have me back after."

Ito doesn't look happy.

"But you're the best magician we have in Tropical Land. The kids love you."

Kid sighs, zipping up his jacket. "I know. I'm sorry. But I really need this break."

Not really.

He's just looking for excuses to stay home, where tantei-kun waits, with his brilliant mind and his biting tongue. (And his pretty little shorts and smooth baby skin that he'd like to watch bruise black and blue under his nails.

But the point is, he _can't_.)

"All right, I understand," Ito sighs. "You know we'll have you any time you decide to come back."

Kid shoots him a frayed smile. "Thank you."

(He doesn't know why he's digging a bigger hole for himself.)

.

* * *

.

"A magician," Conan says, dropping the blue tube of toothpaste. " You're kidding me. _You?_"

"I'll have you know, the kids _adore_ me. I'm their favorite," Kid says with white foam around his mouth like a moustache.

"What do you do, set children on fire?" Conan jabs, sticking the Kamen Yaiba toothbrush into his mouth.

Kid swipes at his chin with a razor.

"No, of course not. Watch," he says, inspecting himself in the mirror, and gives a quick wave of his hand.

With a poof, Conan's toothbrush disappears from his little fingers and materializes in Kid's hand instead.

"Hilarious," Conan mutters, white foam dripping down his chin.

He holds out his hand, as if he expects Kid to just hand it over.

Kid can't stop grinning.

.

* * *

.

By Week Seven, Kid is _aching_ for just a little touch he knows he can't have.

Shouldn't.

All he's been doing is watching tantei-kun, and he's kind of glad Conan thinks of him as nothing more than a creepy bastard anyway—that way, his watching can go unnoticed.

"Staring holes into my skull isn't going to help," Conan deadpans, sitting Indian-style at a river bank.

Well, mostly.

(At the same time, though, he has to wonder_—_if tantei-kun ever knew of the dark thoughts flitting across his mind, would he appreciate how long he's been holding out?)

"Yeah, I know."_ I wasn't looking at your skull, anyway—_"Still no luck?" Kid asks, feeding the ducks, thinking of Conan's bare calves pressed against the yellowing reeds, and the slight sinew of muscles in his thighs.

Soccer legs, for sure.

Conan flinches. "Not really."

Here's the issue: tantei-kun's forging is almost damn flawless, if he puts his mind to it, but.

He's still projecting as his itty bitty bite-sized self, and it's a bit of a problem.

At this point, Kid has to wonder if tantei-kun is just fucking with his mind—but that can't be, because who wants to die a million times over, even if it's all in a dream?

"All right," Kid says, getting to his feet. "We have water right here, if that's what you want. I can always dream up a gun, too. Your choice."

Conan goes a little grey at that.

"I—I'll go with the river," he says, voice tight, and jimmies out of his shoes and socks, dipping his toes through the swirling surface of water.

His ankles go in first, and then his knees and then his stomach, before Conan dunks himself_ under_ and doesn't come back up.

See, there's something beautiful about watching tantei-kun _let go_ like that—wet eyelids and obedience and white bubbles trailing after his drowning body—but there's a part of him that says—_sicko_.

In his defense, he doesn't want this either—_at least not like this_—but what's he gotta do with a Kaitou Kid assistant who can't forge, except make him learn?

(Assistant, though, is quite the farthest thing in his mind when he thinks of tantei-kun.)

"Argh," Kid grunts, dragging fingers through his hair, and _thinks_.

See, this has got to be more than just Conan's subconscious reacting to the change in his physical appearance.

Black Corp spooked him so, and he's trained himself to essentially _be_ Conan even in his sleep, and nothing but a near-death can wrestle that control away from him.

Not even himself.

It's the last shred of control he's latched onto since he's been living with Kid.

(Kid wishes he could press his fingers against Conan's throat and peel away at every strip of that control.

And he knows he's a bastard for wanting it.)

.

* * *

.

The next morning, Kid wakes to the wonderful smell of sizzling bacon and eggs.

(He didn't know tantei-kun could cook.

Though it makes sense, for a guy who's been on his own since age fourteen.)

"Get your own, thief." Conan slaps his hand away when he reaches for a piece of crispy bacon cooked to perfection. "I made these. They're mine."

_And you're mine, so by default, they're mine_, Kid almost blurts out, but doesn't.

He knows how to use tact when there's food involved.

"Tantei-kun," he whines, "but, but. Whose fridge did these come from?"

"I don't care," Conan grumbles, but breaks off the shell of an extra egg against the hard surface of the stove anyway.

Kid's grin stretches wide across his face. "Knew you weren't a cruel person, tantei-kun."

He thinks he hears _lazy fatass thief_, but pretends he doesn't.

.

* * *

.

Week Nine, when Kid opens his eyes in a dimly-lit train compartment, Conan already has a taser aimed at bare flesh in his own forearm, eyes closed and bottom lip between his teeth.

Good boy. He picks up so fast.

(Kid knows what this is_—_it starts with cognitive dissonance and spirals downward from there.)

"All right, we're moving on from forgery for now," Kid says, plucking the stun gun out of Conan's fingers and tucking it away. "You'll get it on your own, eventually."

"Is that so?" Conan snorts.

"Mmhmm," Kid smiles, thumping against the glass pane along to a song he doesn't quite remember. "Don't believe me?"

"Not really."

The train sways to the left.

"That is a problem," Kid tuts, tapping his index finger lightly against the tip of Conan's nose, "as our next lesson is about trust between a Kaitou and his assistant."

Conan scrunches his nose. "But I do trust you. To be a bastard and shoot me in the knees when you feel like it."

Cute.

"Ah, but not without reason, no? And you've been the one doing the shooting as of late, if I recall correctly."

Conan stiffens, pursing his lips.

"Now," Kid grins, clasping his hands and leaning forward a little, "trust is essential to a team in the dream-sharing business. Without it, we'll all end up behind bars within a month. So."

He flicks his hand, and a chair and a length of rope materialize between them.

"Sit."

Conan eyes the rope with wary eyes. "What's that for?"

"Tying you up, of course." And he'll have delicious fun doing it, too. "The question is, do you trust me to let you go after?"

"No."

Kid grins, because despite what he said, Conan is already crawling onto the chair and sitting upright, dainty hands on his knees.

(He dreams of spreading those knees apart and tracing the seam of his jeans, right along his legs to the juncture of skin where his cheeks meet his thighs, and maybe lick him there, too, after the jeans come off—)

Sometimes, he wants to _kick_ himself and his imagination.

"Now, tantei-kun," Kid says, breathing a little ragged around the edges as he hooks a knot around Conan's upper torso. "Say we're on a job together. We're in a dream, and I tell you to jump off a bridge. Would you do it?"

Conan gulps. "What you're asking for is obedience, not trust."

"Same thing, same difference," Kid twirls a hand in the air. "Would you?"

He leans a little closer, lips almost touching the shell of his ear, but Conan doesn't flinch away.

"Don't exactly have a choice here, do I?" he grumbles, and lets out a yelp when Kid tightens the rope. "Not so tight, Kid!"

"Hm?" Kid secures the knot, bowline style, with his eyebrows quirked.

Conan heaves a sigh, blowing his bangs out of his face. "You wouldn't ask unless you saw tactical advantages to it, anyway."

Kid blinks.

That's not what he thought he'd say—but it kind of makes him feel these light butterflies, right in his gut and rising up his throat.

The wrong kind of butterflies.

(He wonders if tantei-kun even hears himself. He'd jump off a bridge just 'cause Kid asked him to, because there'd be _tactical advatages.)_

"Exactly," he says with a grin full of teeth.

.

* * *

_AN: Phew, that took a while. I'm sorry, this chapter was being a hassle and I'm just glad I don't have to look at it anymore, orz. Thank you, to everyone who helped make this chapter happen—you know who you are—and everyone who's read and reviewed so far! *throws hearts everywhere* Your support means a lot to me and I hope you'll continue to enjoy Morpheus!  
_


	6. but it'll always be just you and i

_WARNING: Non-explicit non-con._

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

.

* * *

**.**

**six**

**.**

* * *

The list grows longer.

Broken knuckles, strangulation, and a second degree burn in the hand—the deep partial thickness kind, not the superficial one—which is his least favorite.

It's the most diverse, ranging from chemical to electrical to scalding, but it's too ugly when it doesn't need to be.

All of which is _vastly_ fascinating to know.

But there's this other thing he wants to see, too—how long would tantei-kun last, if he's bent underneath Kid's knees while Kid presses into him, hot and hard and aching?

How long, indeed.

.

* * *

.

Once Kid's thought about it, he can't un-think it.

_How long will tantei-kun last, if he's bent underneath Kid's knees while Kid presses into him, hot and hard and aching?_

Kid tightens his grip on the projection's hips, and brushes his lips against the back of Conan's neck.

"Get the hell _off, _Kid—" the projection spits, and Kid peals into breathy laughter, pressing a cool flick blade against his thighs and dragging teeth down his neck, along his spine.

The stretch of white skin turns red under his breath.

Fuck.

It's perfect but at the same time _not_, because his projections are bound by what he knows, and Kid has no idea just how much is enough before Conan starts to crack and tear open in half.

He wants to know, but on the other hand, he _doesn't_ want to know.

At all.

Lips curving down against the red mark on Conan's neck, Kid inches his fingers deeper inside him, slowly, and holds them there, gasping at the tight clamp on his knuckles.

The projection whimpers, but doesn't dare flinch away from the fingers.

(But Kid nicks him thin and red right along his inner thigh anyway, and lets the blade hover just a touch above white skin, ghosting up his stomach, around his nipples, along his collarbone.)

It doesn't take long until Kid comes, tongue stumbling over the syllables—_tantei-kun, tantei-kun, tantei-kun_—like a mantra, cock fisted in his own hand and fingers rooted knuckle-deep in Conan.

(Something in the back of his mind screams _this isn't right, isn't right, isn't right_.)

.

* * *

_but it'll always be just you and i_

* * *

.

It's strange, what people get used to after a while.

Like waking up to a cup with two dainty toothbrushes in the bathroom, instead of one. The growing bag of empty Somnacin vials he needs to throw out every week, because he's using them up at a rate twice as fast. Extra milk and f-f-fish on his grocery list.

He still wants to fuck tantei-kun, but.

He's come to _like_ the sarcasm on his tongue, the itty bitty pinky that sticks out when he sips at his tea (milk, no sugar), the sweet dimple on his left cheek, the eggplants he pushes to the corner of the plate and never eats.

And there's the way tantei-kun kind of sort of _trusts_ him, implicitly, even as they are now. Conan calls it obedience, but Kid knows it's there.

(Stockholm Syndrome, more like, but still.)

It'll have its uses, once they're out there doing jobs as a team, but otherwise—

He doesn't know what to do with it.

.

* * *

.

Kid really shouldn't have put off calling Aoko for days.

"Kaito, you _baka_, open up!"

There's a bang, and then a bang, and then another as Kid freezes, eyes darting to the unlocked basement door and the leftover tuna fish from lunch, still yet to be put away.

Aoko would _flip_ if she saw fish anywhere in his vicinity.

It's just—tantei-kun is a growing boy and he _needs_ all these nutrients, Kid's phobia notwithstanding.

Damn, damn.

"Coming!" He yells over the pounding, and dumps the fish into the trash bin and locks the basement door.

The key sits heavy in his breast pocket as he fumbles with the door knob.

"Long time no see, Aoko," he says, voice faint and breathy, "and—_Hakuba?!_"

"Good afternoon, Kuroba-kun," says Hakuba, with a courteous nod of his head.

The bastard is smiling that innocent smile that Kid _hates _to pieces.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, mister," Aoko says, stomping through the doorway. "What are you thinking, quitting your job? And ignoring us for a whole week!"

"Well, I can explain—" Kid opens his mouth, except Aoko slaps a hand over his teeth with her eyebrows quirked, a ring of silver around her finger dragging across his lips.

"Who's that?" Aoko asks, pointing behind him.

Kid nearly falls face-first on the floor when he sees tantei-kun frozen behind the skinny crack of the bathroom door left ajar, eyes wide and fingers clenched around the knob and _shit—_

The murder mystery book slips from Conan's hand and tumbles onto the floor.

"My apprentice!" Kid says, without missing a beat, and shoots Conan a look_—behave, tantei-kun—_ "He's here to learn the secrets of magic from me."

Hakuba raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

(There's a brief shimmer on his ring finger. Most likely, Hakuba doesn't like to take it off, not even for showers.)

Kid heaves a sigh. "He's my third cousin twice removed. His parents are on a business trip."

"Oh," Aoko says, "so _that_'s why you've been busy! You should've said so!"

Her lips quirk up as she kicks off her shoes and paddles into the living room. "He's so cute! What's your name, kiddo?"

Conan is still caught staring at the guests from the bathroom, and Kid can practically see the gears churning behind those wide blue eyes.

"Kou-kun, say hi to Aoko. She's my friend," he says, waving his hand at Aoko, who crouches down to Conan's eye level and pats him on the head with a squeal.

"And that's Hakuba, a stick in the mud."

Hakuba, snorting, picks up Aoko's flip flops with gentle fingers and puts them on the shoe rack before paddling into the living room himself.

"Hey, I'm not gonna bite," Aoko says. "Kaito, are you sure this is your cousin? He's not like you at all. Look at him, all scared and shy and _adorable_!"

"What are you talking about? I was totally an adorable kid," Kid grumbles. (Conan still hasn't moved, and it's getting on Kid's nerves.)

_You know what to do, tantei-kun._

Aoko, huffing, stands up and settles down on a couch. "You were a nightmare, I'll give you that."

"I agree," Hakuba nods.

Another bout of squeals bubble from Aoko's throat as she pats the empty cushion next to hers. "C'mere, kiddo! I promise I won't bite!"

Kid doesn't miss the sharp glance Conan shoots the little cubic jewel gleaming on her ring finger.

"Yes, Kou-kun. C'mere." Kid says with a grin full of teeth, and Conan's palms drop to his sides, limp and sheened in white, as he crawls onto the couch and into Aoko's lap with a hesitant smile.

Kid ruffles his hair with a quirk on his lips.

.

* * *

.

An hour later, Kid has to practically drag them out the door. "All right, lovebirds, time to give a magician his space. Drop me a warning if you want to visit next time?"

Aoko flicks him on the forehead. "Only if you promise to stop ignoring us!"

(Hakuba _giggles_, that bastard.)

"Have a good afternoon, Kuroba-kun."

The door slams shut behind them, and a tense silence reigns the air bloated between Kid and Conan.

"She, er, I mean Aoko-san," Conan says, stumbling on his words. "Do you_—_um, like her?"

Kid freezes up, just for a split second.

"I mean_—_" Conan looks up, and then away, eyes fixed on his toes. "I'll just. Nevermind."

Kid flexes his fingers with a blank look.

There are _nails_ scratching against a chalkboard right behind his ear, and he can't shut them out.

"A long time ago, I did," he says after a long pause. "When we were still kids."

He doesn't know why he's telling him this.

"Before Kaitou Kid, you mean." Conan isn't asking a question.

Kid purses his lips, not bothering to confirm or deny.

Conan sighs, staring down at his fingertips. "It kind of sucks," he mutters, hesitant and syllables rolling off his tongue like a sad little song, "watching them move on with their lives without you. Doesn't it?"

Kid goes still again, eyes darting to the blue, blue eyes focused on _him_ for once, and he isn't sure if he likes them.

Not one bit.

"That doesn't matter," he says, abruptly, "because_ you_ weren't supposed to be up here. They _saw _you, and I had to improvise."

Conan flinches, but his eyes don't waver for a second.

"I had to go to the bathroom," he snaps right back. "It was an _emergency_. Or do I need your permission to do that, too?"

On better days, Kid likes these little bouts of defiance from Conan, because they're kind of cute and funny.

Today, though, it's not.

A sudden bolt of anger shoots through Kid's veins, and the next thing he knows, he's lashing out with his arm and a low growl.

When he comes to, he has Conan pinned on his back on the floor, breathing against Conan's collar bone as his right knee digs into the soft flesh of a stomach.

(He can almost hear tantei-kun's wet moan—_please, Kid, stop, I can't_—)

"Ah, ah, no mouthing off. You might just make me angry, you know? You don't want that," he says, low and breathless.

(His heart is pounding against his ribcage, and Kid wants to move his knee down and down and down until it's pressed hot and hard between Conan's thighs.)

Conan flinches away, and that makes Kid—_madder_.

He means to let go of Conan's wrists, really, but instead, he's inching closer, lowering his lips until they almost brush against the bridge of flesh along Conan's neck.

(What is he doing.)

"Tantei-kun," he breathes, voice cracking in two. _I want you,_ he doesn't say.

_I want you._

.

* * *

.

In retrospect, Conan probably hadn't meant to ask out of cruelty.

If there's anyone who knows what it's like to keep a terrible secret that eats away at you until you're swallowed whole, until you _become_ the secret in and out, and there's nothing left of you anymore—

—it's tantei-kun.

But that's not really true at all, is it?

Because—that was Stockholm Syndrome talking. Not Conan.

(It's funny, because here they are, two little walking terrible secrets, ugly and exposed only for each other's eyes, drawn together like a moth to a flame.

It's stopped being clear who the moth is.)

.

* * *

.

Kid pulls back, slowly, adrenaline rushing through his blood, and lets up, eyes flickering to the ragged rise and fall of Conan's chest.

His mind is still reeling over what he almost did.

"Up," Kid says, getting to his feet and brushing imaginary dust from his shirt as if nothing had happened.

Conan doesn't move.

Kid, sighing, hooks an arm around Conan's waist and carries him downstairs, trying not to think about prying him open like a butterfly held between his fingers, raw and hot and strangled moans—

It's a good thing tantei-kun isn't thrashing about, for once. Else he might end up doing things he'll regret, and he wouldn't even be able to control himself.

"Let go of me," Conan exhales, breath short and shallow, going dead still in his arms.

The fear in his voice is unmistakable, and Kid isn't sure if it's dread or thrill pooling in his stomach, because tantei-kun _has _to know what's going on, now.

"All right. Just—stay put, yeah?" Kid says, lightly, and locks Conan up in the basement and throws the key across the hallway.

It clatters against the linoleum floor somewhere in the shadows.

(It'll be a bitch trying to find it later, but he can't bring himself to care.)

The walls around him _scream_.

.

* * *

_AN: Ahh, I'm sorry about the delay in review responses! I've been sick for the past week and urgh, it wasn't fun at all. But thank you so much for the continued support, and please remember that reviews feed writers' muse~ And, and, since this chapter's a bit shorter than others, I'd like to offer another short sneak peek for the next chapter for my reviewers! :D (Unless you don't want it, which you can specify in your review.) I HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL FOR CHAPTER 7 SOON! *hearts*_


	7. you're just a little monster

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

.

* * *

**.**

**seven**

**.**

* * *

There's an awkward silence at breakfast table, broken only by the clatter of chopsticks and spoons.

Kid stirs his miso soup, clockwise first and then counter clock wise, eyes flickering to Conan sitting across from him.

Their eyes never meet, not even once.

At this point, Kid can do one of two things.

One: he doesn't say anything. If Kid doesn't bring it up, then Conan sure as hell won't. Not if he values his safety. They can move on, like nothing has happened.

Two: he can pick up where he left off last time.

Oh, how much he wants to, but a part of him _doesn't_ want that at all.

.

* * *

.

Being hooked to a PASIV device doesn't equate actual rest.

It's a good thing he quit his other job, because there's no way he'd function like a productive human being with the amount of rest he's _not_ getting.

He wonders, sometimes, what it'd have been like if they'd met under different circumstances. If he'd done anything different.

Sometimes, he has fleeting thoughts of a biting tongue and a cat-like smile and Conan stretched around him red and raw, murmuring _take me, take me, I need you, Kaito, yes. _

But he doesn't dare dream any other way.

(On the other hand, he's getting tired of fighting the dark thoughts that rear their ugly head every night in his sleep.

—He's tired of just _wanting_.)

.

* * *

.

Kid tries telling Aoko, over the phone.

"I think I found my soulmate," he mutters, flopping onto his bed with a decent dose of dreamy sigh coloring his voice.

"_It's not another idol from a girl group, is it?"_ Aoko huffs. _"Because if it is, I'm hanging up."_

"No, no," Kid blanches. "I'm serious this time. I think."

"_Okay," _Aoko perks up. _"What's she like?"_

"_He_'s really, really smart," Kid pauses. "He can see through my tricks like they're nothing. I've—I've never seen anyone quite like him before."

"_Aww, my little Kaito's growing up! Have you asked him out yet?"_

Kid thinks for a second.

"Well, there's a problem," he sighs. "He doesn't like me."

"_What?! You scared him off already?!"_

"I—may have gone overboard with my, erm, tricks when we first met."

Which isn't even a lie.

"_Kaito, you idiot!"_ Kid winces, pulling the phone away from his ear. _"What are you, six? You should be way past the stage of pulling pigtails!"_

"I know, I know. And then there's this, well. Something happened the other day, and I may have kind of kissed him?"

His neck, more like, but that would make for an awkward story, wouldn't it.

"_What_?!" There's the sound of a palm slapping against a forehead. _"Oh my god, you didn't!"_

Kid thumbs the coiled phone line with a sigh.

"He didn't exactly say no. He was just, there. And I ran away before he said anything after that."

Aoko falls silent for a moment.

"_If he really didn't like you, he'd have hit you already," _she says. "_So maybe he just thinks you're playing with him. Oh, I know! You should tell him, then!"_

"Tell him?"

"_How you feel, duh! You have to be serious, though. No tricks, okay?"_

"Right."

"_I gotta go now, but I want details later, all right?"_

Kid nods against the phone, hanging up.

_Tell him how you feel_.

Kid wishes it were that simple.

(How can it be, when it's already spun miles out of his control?)

.

* * *

.

In the end, it all comes down to a choice.

Kid wants to see Conan scream and buck under him while he presses a cold blade against Conan's thighs, but he also wants Conan to wrap his thin arms around his shoulders and whisper _it's okay, I love you too_.

He can't have both.

.

* * *

.

Conan has his button nose buried in a newspaper clipping when Kid pushes the basement door open, a PASIV device in one hand.

Conan still refuses to meet his eyes.

(Which is just dandy.)

"All right," Kid says, lips tight. "We're going to review a few pointers on forgery today."

Conan's eyes flicker up at him for a split second, before he puts the newspaper away and holds out his wrist with the caution of a cornered animal.

Except.

"Where did you get this?" Kid growls, snatching the article from the table.

His knuckles go white around a black and white photograph.

"Over there," Conan points at a stack of boxes neatly stacked in the corner. "It's been there since I got here."

Konosuke Jii is smiling that gentle smile in greyscale, and Kid really, really can't afford to think of Jii-chan right now.

_Damn tantei-kun and his nosy little mind._

"Oh? Had fun playing detective, I see. What have you got, hm?"

Conan watches him fiddle with the dashboard on the PASIV device and exhales, slow and deep. "It wasn't an accident," he starts, eyes darting to the floor, "how he—passed away. Was it?"

Kid clenches a fist, hearing the photograph crumple between his fingers. _Of course tantei-kun would figure it out. Damn it all._

"He—" Conan starts, staring at his fingertips with his head hung low. "I mean, I'm sorry. He must have meant a lot to you."

Kid freezes, blood turning cold.

_Oh, no, you're not going there._

He twists around with an ugly smile on his face. "Oh? And how did you deduce _that_?"

Conan gulps.

"I—heard you talking. The other day. And there was no one else in the room."

Did he now.

Kid breathes, a flash of red working its way up his throat and staining his vision, because—he doesn't like the way Conan's blue eyes turn bright and inquisitive, tainted by a glaze of understanding.

He doesn't like it one bit. (He wants tantei-kun close, but not this kind of close.

He doesn't want _anybody_ this kind of close.)

"Put that away," Kid says, flinging the crumpled article in Conan's general direction before pulling the needles out. "We're done talking about this."

He wants the fear back. He wants Conan to gasp and shiver and look at him like he's a monster.

That is infinitely better than this—_understanding._

Kid's mind is reeling with dark thoughts of blood when Conan sighs and holds out his bare wrist.

(He stares and stares at the speck of red pooling where the needle sinks deep, penetrating the honey skin, and doesn't think of stopping himself.)

.

* * *

_you're just a little monster_

* * *

.

They wake up in a shore of sand and pebbles.

A spark of thrill runs along Kid's spine when Conan paddles into the water with a sigh, leaving size one footprints in the sopping sand.

Good boy.

Except.

It used to be enough, watching tantei-kun drive himself to the brink of death.

Not this time, though_._

Breath coming up short, Kid stalks into the waves after Conan, gait slow and steady, and—

Tantei-kun must have sensed something _wrong_ in the air, because all of a sudden, he stops and twists around, submerged to his shoulders.

(Wet eyelids and wet throat and wet lips turned red and glazed in pain—)

"What? I'm going in," Conan says, backing away, slowly.

The water sloshes between them.

"I know you are," Kid smiles, feverish and pulsing. _But I have a better idea._

Before Conan can blink, Kid _jumps_, closing his fingers around the soft tuft of hair at the back of his skull, and dunks him _under_ and doesn't let up.

"Stay still, tantei-kun," Kid whispers, heart pounding against his ribcage. "It'll be over in a minute."

The water bursts into frantic bubbles around his submerged arm, and his breath comes up short at the feel of little nails scratching the back of his hand.

(He wants to peel away at the strangled noise Conan makes, until there's nothing left but naked fear in its darkest tint.)

But then, but then.

Tantei-kun goes dead still, a few seconds later.

He's _giving up_, fight melting straight out of him into the salty water.

Kid smiles, breath short and uneven. Good boy.

The spark _burns _at the back of his neck when the bubbles disintegrate, one by one, until the surface is calm again.

(When he wrenches his arm back above the surface, Kid is staring into wet blue eyes of Kudou Shinichi.

"What the hell is your problem?!" Shinichi chokes, nose red and lips sheened in blue.

"Shhh," Kid whispers into wet cheekbones.)

.

* * *

.

Love is relative, his father once told him. What it means to you, it will not mean to others.

It was a long time ago, though.

He learned it the hard way when his father left home with nothing but a package of white costumes and a silver PASIV case after a long night of yelling in the master bedroom.

His mother left, too, not long after that, not that he cared much.

Years later, when he learned of how his father died—killed by Black Corp on a failed job—he couldn't bring himself to feel much, either.

(It was something like Kuroba Touichi's fifth attempt at inception.)

His old man might have been wrong about inception, but he was right about one thing.

Love is relative, and power is the only way you can keep anyone with you.

.

* * *

.

Once you've made up your mind, time tends to slow down.

A flick blade, check.

Lube, check.

Condoms, check.

He's given it a lot of thought, whether he'd prefer the million different possibilities of a dream—or the physical limits of reality.

In the end, though, he decides he likes the real thing more, no matter how many fantasies he has to compromise.

He'd like their first time to be special and _real_, after all.

Someday, though. He wants to find out how many different ways he can cut tantei-kun open before he starts to scream and beg him to stop.

(What is he doing.)

.

* * *

.

Strange how Conan seems to sense the _wrongness_ in the air before Kid even opens his mouth.

"We're going to," Kid says, fluted and steely, "do something different today."

He pushes the PASIV device away and rounds to the left, around the table between him and Conan.

"Kid—" Conan exhales and backs away to the right, eyes darting to the door.

Cute.

"Ah, ah," Kid peals into a laugh, leaning along the surface of the table and grabbing Conan by the collar of his shirt. "No running away."

Conan stops breathing, lips thinned.

(Conan's lips and Conan's cheeks and Conan's milk thighs, spread around him like a little door being pried open just for him—)

There's a million needles shooting down his spine as Kid licks his lips and leans into the junction of white skin between Conan's jaw and his frown.

He can't breathe either.

"Get—get off of me," Conan rasps, twisting away.

Kid stretches his fingers across Conan's spine and _pushes_, and Conan looks scared for a moment.

"Do you," Kid whispers, ghosting his lips down to the corner of Conan's mouth, "like me?"

'_Cause I like you so much it's making me sick._

"Get off!" An elbow flies at his neck, and Kid ducks away, slamming Conan onto the table, nails digging into his shoulders and neck.

(He wants to see it turn pink under his fingers and smell the blood and listen to the breathless whine as he touches and bites and pushes _in_—)

Kid leans in close, breathing in the smell of baby powder and citrus of their shared soap, and nips at Conan's corner of his mouth again.

"When I ask you a question, you _answer_," Kid breathes right into Conan's ear. "Right?"

(What is he doing.)

.

* * *

_AN: HI. I'M SORRY THIS IS LATE. AGAIN. But I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, anywho! :D _

_A little warning in advance: the next chapter will contain explicit non-con, so anyone who doesn't wish to read it should skip it when I update._


	8. all that glitters

_**AN: An important announcement at the end of the chapter. Please make sure to read it if you're still enjoying the story!**_

_**WARNING: As I have stated in the previous update, THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS EXPLICIT NON-CON. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.**_

* * *

**.:Morpheus:.**

_Little Monsters_

A DC/MK fanfiction

by califlair

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* * *

**.**

**eight**

**.**

* * *

_Be nice_, is what Kid thinks like a mantra, pulling Conan up onto the table by the back of his neck, fingers scraping against the top buttons on his shirt.

Conan's breathing turns raw and red.

"Kid—" he chokes, voice cracking in two. "—wait—"

"Hmm?" Kid leans in with a hum, long fingers making quick work down two or three buttons before pausing.

(He'd made sure that _this_ was what Conan would wear today—a white child-sized dress shirt. There's something distinctly appealing about those little buttons—prying him open from the middle and letting the shirt slip off of him in a heap of white around him.)

He looks down at Conan and his lips pursed between his teeth, and wants to tease them open and slip his tongue inside.

And there's nothing stopping him anymore.

So he does just that, fingers digging red marks into Conan's neck, and this time, Conan _bites_.

"Fuck _off_—" Conan spits, drawing back as he wipes his mouth clean. "—_get away_—!"

Kid, smiling, pulls away and lets go. _Be nice._ "Oh. Did that hurt?"

Conan turns away.

So Kid reaches out to hold his hand instead, prying the soft fist open and running his fingertips along the contour of his thumb and his nails and up his wrist.

When Kid lets go, there's a little cell phone clenched between Conan's fingers.

Conan goes tense when he recognizes what it is, and what it means—of course he does, he's got quite the brilliant little mind—and Kid gets to work on the buttons again, down and down and down.

"One phone call," he says, mouth dry and lips chapped, "is all it takes. Just one. Remember that, tantei-kun."

Conan closes his eyes and shudders.

"You, you—wouldn't," he says, barely above a whisper and Kid has to strain to hear the words. "Kid, _please_. Don't."

There it is. _Please._

Kid wants to savor the sound on his tongue and roll it between his teeth and never swallow.

_Be nice._

"Shh," he murmurs into the white of Conan's throat, popping the last button free and peeling the white cotton off his pale shoulders. "It's okay, yeah? It's okay."

(What is he doing.)

.

* * *

_all that glitters_

* * *

.

Conan sits flushed and unmoving on the table, and Kid's skin is getting moist under his dark t-shirt.

(It's like time is tripping and speeding all at once.)

"No need to be tense, yeah?" Kid says, splaying his fingers along Conan's sides and crawling them up to his chest, watching the skin jump away.

Cute.

He makes chase, breath short, and lets himself really _touch_ this time, feeling the dip and turns and goose bumps and nipples under his fingertips.

Conan shudders with a gasp, eyes clenched shut, and Kid wants to kiss the crease between Conan's knitted brows.

(And then realizes he _can_, again, so he does.

Again.)

"You can," he says, low and breathy against a temple, "open your eyes, yeah? Look at me."

(His flick blade can wait. Right now, he just wants this to be real and special and nothing like his usual fantasies.)

Conan, though, sucks in a breath and screws his eyes shut tighter, and that makes Kid laugh, just a little bit, because is that supposed be defiance.

See, there's no screaming or kicking or crying like in his dreams, and it's a little jarring, the gap between _that_, and the swirling silence of it all.

It almost sounds like a_ yes, I want you, too._

So Kid keeps going, nipping at the curve of his neck and watching it flare up in pretty pink under his hot breath.

(He shouldn't leave marks—what if Aoko or Hakuba drop in again with no warning—but he really, really wants to. Maybe just _one_, and that's it.

Maybe.)

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* * *

.

"I'd like to see you," Kid breathes, "Think you can do that for me?"

His fingers ghost along the small waistband and just a touch below, warm and _intent_.

Conan swallows, eyes clenched shut, but doesn't move.

So Kid gets to work himself, pulling the drawstring loose and jimmying a hand underneath, folding the underwear down, down, and down to Conan's anklebones.

The heat inside of him _burns_, and he lets himself appreciate, just for a bit.

"How do you like this?" Kid breathes into the curve of Conan's neck and pulls at his cock, blunt nails scrapping up and down while his index finger draws slow circles around the tip.

Conan gasps, mouth falling open and eyes shut.

Kid wants to steal the phone from between Conan's fingers, snap a photo, and keep it pressed under a jar in his room.

(He's always wondered, in the wake of pleasure—would Conan whimper, would he scream, or would he moan—but Conan _bites_ down on his lips, pretty brows meeting in the middle, and all he hears is ragged breathing torn around the edges.

Which is nice, in itself, but. That's not enough.)

He tugs faster, slipping his fingers down the seam his own pants before dipping under his waistband with a groan.

It must feel pretty good, because tantei-kun is getting hard and wet in his hand, shuddering deep and lips sheened in white between his teeth.

(Not enough.)

Still, though. He doesn't resist when Kid spreads his knees apart, or when he lowers his lips to suckle on the collarbones.

(He thinks of wet eyelids and red between thighs_, _and something in the back of his mind is pleading for him to _stop_.

But he can't, because he wants to brush his thumb along the wet trails on Conan's cheeks and lick the shell of his ear and curl his fingers inside him where he hasn't been touched—)

He pulls faster, feeling moisture against his fingers, and then thinks he hears a breathy _ah _against his ear and _that_ snaps him to attention.

Conan is glaring holes into the floor below, lips parted and wet and red from the biting—and the sounds don't stop, like floodgates opening in a string of _ah, ah, ah_—_!_

Fuck.

Now he knows. A moaner.

Kid gasps, jerking into his own palm before he—pulls his hand away.

"You like this?" Kid breathes and touches Conan's cheeks and the corner of his lips with his wet thumb, and that gets Conan's attention, glazed blue eyes on _him_, and.

Fuck.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

Kid tugs, again and again, and runs his other fingers down the crack of skin around Conan's hole.

"It's all right, tantei-kun. You can—" Kid groans, circling around the edges of the hole. "—let go."

"Ah—!" Conan keens one last time with a shudder, and Kid laps the sound right out of his mouth, another pulse of _want_ shooting through his veins.

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* * *

.

Wet tissues are in the second drawer, he remembers.

(From when Jii-chan used to clean up this space.)

Kid pulls a few out, and wipes them against his fingers dripping with clear liquid.

"That wasn't so bad," Kid murmurs, flexing his knuckles, "was it?"

Conan jerks away, tense and shivering, and looks at the wall.

There's the crinkle of a square foil in his jean pocket that sits heavy and hot, and it reminds him how hard he still is, and how much he _needs._

Conan is about to get down from the table on wobbly legs when Kid reaches out to stop him, a condom tucked between the fingers that brush against the small of his knee.

Conan doesn't see it at first, eyes still fixed on the wall, but Kid flexes his fingers just a little higher along Conan's milk thigh and then—he does.

He stops breathing when he pieces together just what it is.

"No," Conan says, eyes wide, "No, _no_, Kid—you _can't_—"

"You didn't think that was it, did you?" Kid breathes, collapsing on the couch behind him, his fly still open, and—Conan flinches when he sees how hard Kid is.

"C'mere for a bit," Kid says, and gestures at his lap.

Conan—doesn't move, and it draws an eggshell sigh from Kid, thin and brittle. "_Now_, if you don't mind?"

Because it's getting kind of harder to just sit there and not shove Conan back onto the table top and press himself, hot and aching, between his white thighs.

Conan purses his lips and closes his eyes in resignation, and _that _sends another hot pulse running through his blood.

This time, it makes Kid grab Conan by his calves and drag him onto the couch, warm thighs spread around his lap like he's been wanting to for—_weeks_, and slide his tongue against the space between his frown and his jaw.

His fingers move of their own accord, almost, circling against the belly button and around, tracing the spine to his tailbone and dipping under.

Conan jumps, gasping, and Kid tightens his other hand against Conan's hip—_don't move, tantei-kun_—and watches the skin turn white and red under his nails.

(Will turn blue later.)

"Do you like that?" Kid whispers against Conan's jaw, circling his index finger around the edges of the hole with gentle prying motions before pressing _in_, just a little bit.

Conan makes a noise at the back of his throat and Kid can feel just how tense tantei-kun is beneath his silence, and.

(He can't wait to shatter it into pieces, again and again.)

.

* * *

.

Hand lotion in his other pocket, he remembers.

He squirts a little bit onto his fingers, and smooths it out around his fingertips and his knuckles, conscious of Conan's faltering gaze on his flexing hands.

"Tell me, tantei-kun," he says, as he presses his index finger _in_, between the thighs around his lap, "have you—done this with anyone else?"

Because tantei-kun wasn't always six but a healthy teen with healthy hormones and a crush hovering right next to him.

He holds his breath as Conan closes his eyes with a shake of his head.

There's a slight smile stretching across the corner of Kid's mouth as he pushes his finger deeper into the ring of muscle pulled taut and tense.

(Tantei-kun is impossibly tight. He wasn't lying, then. Makes him think, _is he even going to fit_—but that's not a problem. He'll make himself fit.)

Conan's stomach jumps when he adds another finger and grinds, and then another, pressing past the tight resistance to touch him inside where no one's touched before.

Conan is breathing damp spots into the dark seam of his t-shirt across his shoulders, little gasps pushing past his lips, and Kid is sick of the silence of it all.

"Think you're ready?" he asks, and this time, he wants an _answer_. Conan, though, just chokes on his breath, grasping the fold of Kid's dark T-shirt on his shoulders.

It makes Kid _mad_.

Growling, he pulls his fingers out and shoves them back in past the tight ring of muscles, until he's rooted knuckle deep and pushing into the prostate, again and again.

"Are you ready, or do you want more of this?" he says, mouth against the shadow on Conan's throat as he curls his fingers just so, eyes fixed on the sheen of pleasure on tantei-kun's face.

"_Ah—_" Conan gasps, his abdomen jerking away, but Kid presses him back down until he's pinned on his lap and has no choice but to _take_.

"Ready, tantei-kun?" He asks one last time as he leans in for a kiss right between the lips, fighting against the tight clamp around his knuckles.

Conan shudders, wet around the corners of his eyes as he looks away. "Y-yes."

.

* * *

**AN: An important announcement-I'm thinking of discontinuing Morpheus for two reasons. One, having reread what I had, I noticed a ton of poorly developed plot points and rushed developments and it's really, really discouraging to be honest. Two, it's been a while since I last updated and it makes me wonder if there are people out there still reading / following the story. **

**It'll take a lot out of me to continue what I know is already flawed and in desperate need of a rewrite, so I don't want to waste efforts on something that people won't read. **

**So please, if you're still reading and enjoying Morpheus, I'd really appreciate it if you could drop a line, just so I know. A short, "I'm still reading!" will do-I just want to see how many active readers the story has as of now.**

**Thank you in advance for your support. **


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